About Philip
Growing up in a strict, fundamentalist church in the southern USA, a young Philip Yancey tended to view God as “a scowling Supercop, searching for anyone who might be having a good time—in order to squash them.” Yancey jokes today about being in recovery from a toxic church. “Of course, there were good qualities too. If a neighbor’s house burned down, the congregation would rally around and show charity—if, that is, the house belonged to a white person. I grew up confused by the contradictions. We heard about love and grace, but I didn’t experience much. And we were taught that God answers prayers, miraculously, but my father died of polio just after my first birthday, despite many prayers for his healing.”
For Yancey, reading offered a window to a different world. So, he devoured books that opened his mind, challenged his upbringing, and went against what he had been taught. A sense of betrayal engulfed him. “I felt I had been lied to. For instance, what I learned from a book like To Kill a Mockingbird or Black Like Me contradicted the racism I encountered in church. I went through a period of reacting against everything I was taught, and even discarding my faith. I began my journey back mainly by encountering a world very different than I had been taught, an expansive world of beauty and goodness. Along the way I realized that God had been misrepresented to me. Cautiously, warily, I returned, circling around the faith to see if it might be true.”
Ever since, Yancey has explored the most basic questions and deepest mysteries of the Christian faith, guiding millions of readers with him. Early on he crafted best-selling books such as Disappointment with God and Where is God When it Hurts? while also editing The Student Bible. He coauthored three books with the renowned surgeon Dr. Paul Brand. “No one has influenced me more,” he says. “We had quite a trade: I gave words to his faith, and in the process he gave faith to my words.” In time, he has explored central matters of the Christian faith, penning award-winning titles such as The Jesus I Never Knew, What’s So Amazing About Grace? and Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? His books have garnered 13 Gold Medallion Awards from Christian publishers and booksellers. He currently has more than 17 million books in print, published in over 50 languages worldwide. In his memoir, Where the Light Fell, Yancey recalls his lifelong journey from strict fundamentalism to a life dedicated to a search for grace and meaning, thus providing a type of prequel to all his other books.
Yancey worked as a journalist in Chicago for some twenty years, editing the youth magazine Campus Life while also writing for a wide variety of magazines. In the process he interviewed diverse people enriched by their personal faith, such as President Jimmy Carter, Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller, and Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement. In 1992 he and his wife Janet, a social worker and hospice chaplain, moved to the foothills of Colorado, and his writing took a more personal, introspective turn.
“I write books for myself,” he says. “I’m a pilgrim, recovering from a bad church upbringing, searching for a faith that makes its followers larger and not smaller. Writing became for me a way of deconstructing and reconstructing faith. I feel overwhelming gratitude that I can make a living exploring the issues that most interest me.
“I tend to go back to the Bible as a model, because I don’t know a more honest book. I can’t think of any argument against God that isn’t already included in the Bible. To those who struggle with my books, I reply, ‘Then maybe you shouldn’t be reading them.’ Yet some people do need the kinds of books I write. They’ve been burned by the church, or they’re upset about certain aspects of Christianity. I understand that feeling of disappointment, even betrayal. I feel called to speak to those living in the borderlands of faith.”
You’re very welcome. It really is an honour to communicate with you! Unfortunately the real problem is that I live in Mississippi, where, as of July 1st 2016, if one assumes that someone has had sex outside the confines of a heterosexual marriage, it will be completely fine to fire that person, deny him or her housing, and even refuse to provide such a person with a WEDDING CAKE. I’m not making this up. The word “cake” is actually mentioned in the law. I understand quite frankly that this is an emotional appeal, Mr. Yancey, but if these circumstances don’t warrant it, I’m not really sure what does. How much grace and reason went into a law like this? Our Lord was the greatest advocate for grace and reason, but standing in the temple among the money changers, even he knew when to go for the whip. (By the way, I am speaking metaphorically. I don’t want to spread the stereotype that all gay people are into whips.) As far as your examples from history, I think “women” is a just little too broad for me to comment on it further. As for “slavery,” once you bring up that issue, you have basically conceded the argument because it’s a topic that proves just how categorically and embarrassingly wrong a majority opinion can be in the eyes of history, despite the flimsy biblical arguments that seemed to support slavery in the past. I think that out of many prominent voices in the faith community, you are one of the people brave enough to be on the right side of history. It’s almost completely for your benefit if you choose to do that and essentially of no practical use to me. Nonetheless, if you’re ever travelling in the vicinity of Vicksburg, Mississippi, my husband and I would love to treat you to a very lively but respectful conversation over dinner. I know just the restaurant! Frankly we could use the tourism considering the nightmare our lawmakers have just created.
In His Love,
Blake
I’ve always wanted to visit Vicksburg, after reading about it in Civil War accounts. Funny, isn’t it, how those old houses like Downton Abbey and the Southern plantations, built on the backs of oppression and injustice, become such tourist magnets. If I’m ever in the area, I’ll let you know. Thanks for the invitation.
Please do let me know! You should have my e-mail, and I would love to meet you. Take care!
Enjoyed your Grace book. Your definition “There is nothing we can do to make God love us more,…….less Really resonated with me. What bible passage or passages inspired you to use those words?
Keep the faith,
Andy
No one Bible passage. Just an observation of Jesus’ message in his parables about the “undeserving,” contrasted with his strong words against the Pharisees for their legalism. –Philip